Sarah McMenamin to move into Director of Institutional Effectiveness role at NWIC

The Office of the President is proud to announce that Sarah McMenamin will move into the Director of Institutional Effectiveness role in July 2026. 

In her new role, formerly held by Patricia Cueva, Sarah will focus on accreditation, assessment, and institutional research/data.

“I am looking forward to serving the College in this new capacity and to continue the incredible work being done toward implementing our new Strategic Plan. In this new role, I will also be working to facilitate our future accreditation processes, and will be grateful for input from others about that work as I begin learning in my new position,” Sarah said of her upcoming transition. “Mostly I am grateful for the work that was done previously by Patricia Cueva, and for the future support and collaboration of so many people as I work to fill the needs of this role.” 

Sarah joined Northwest Indian College in August 2024 as the Associate Dean of Two-Year Programs. In that time, Sarah has served as Dean of multiple associate degree programs; supervised and provided faculty, staff and student support; has worked with faculty to develop curriculum and assessment across all two-year degree programs; has collaborated with the eLearning team to support student learning in all modalities, and has been the Department Lead for the General Transfer Degree (DTA) program and the team lead for the College’s First Year Experience (FYE) team. She has also served as a member on multiple critical College committees, and was selected by colleagues and recognized as NWIC’s employee of the year in 2025.

Sarah earned her Masters in Teaching from Washington State University Tri-Cities, and her BA in French from Western Washington University. She is a career educator, having spent 14 years teaching in K-12 classrooms before moving into higher education. She spent six years teaching for Johns Hopkins University and American University in partnership with City Teaching Alliance in Dallas, TX, before moving back to Bellingham in 2023 and joining the College two years ago.

“In the two years that I have been at Northwest Indian College, I have been incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to serve faculty and students as Associate Dean of Two-Year Programs. I cherish the relationships that have been built during this time, and I’m grateful to have the chance to continue working with everyone at the College in a new way,” Sarah said. “Most of all, I’m proud of the work in two-year programs that has been accomplished through the collaboration of so many faculty and staff members across our entire institution, and I am excited to watch that work continue as faculty and staff continue in that effort!”